Saccharine Smile
by RedPineapple27
Summary: The Diclonius alone were proof that you could spell slaughter without laughter.


Saccharine Smile

_For Ryan _

_Okay, so these are just some thoughts on the characters. It's been a while since I watched the series last, so please be nice with any inaccuracies, if you let me know I'll change them. _

_Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from Elfen Lied, and it belongs to people and corporations whose names I can't be bothered Googling. _

The sensations were the same. Rain dripping and slipping on her skin, changing pace with the slope of her back, was oddly reminiscent of the warm wetness of blood staining her skin.

Blood was different to water in the way it felt, though. Where water was cool and quick, blood was thicker, prone to drying before it had made its way all along her spine. It clogged in the fine hairs on her back, and dried there, forming small lumps. The scent shrouded her, thick and metallic like chain mail.

Standing in a shower, water washing away her crimes, she knew that nothing could ever cleanse the bloodstains on her mind. Those were indelible. That she was able to compare blood and showers was proof enough.

The water pooling around her feet was an anaemic red, mellowing further into a pale pink with each second.

Her mind protected itself, allowing her awareness to step out, like a smoker ducking outside for a cigarette. By becoming Nyu she could pause until she was ready for the world again.

Kohta and Mayu were blind to it, to her. Their thinking was too simplistic. No, it was their tenuous hope for the goodness in people which fooled them. There was a chance, Lucy believed, that they would be able to accept her even without Nyu as a part time resident. Their faith needed a subject as much as Lucy needed a saviour.

That was moot while Lucy could wear Nyu's helplessness like a shield, protecting Lucy from the world as much as it insulated her nearest and dearest from Lucy. They would never be able to blame her, believing in her better nature or simply doubting Nyu's capacity for homicide. Kohta especially would find it irreconcilable to pair murder with moe. Even Yuko could hate Nyu only for being the object of Kohta's preoccupation. Even this was tempered by the vague, subliminal impression that perhaps Kohta's disinterest in her sexually was simply that – disinterest. Yuko would never understand the revulsion many people regarded incest with, could never consider that Kohta was simply too ineffective and timid to confront her.

Only Wanta knew.

She would have laughed if she knew how. There was some irony in being regarded with such distrust by the same species who had been part of her awakening, so to speak.

Humans had ignored their better instincts so long that they no longer knew how to read them. They had replaced their spider senses with cost benefit analysis. She was so far removed from the humans, for while she shared the same propensity to analyse, she factored her impressions and perceptions into her calculations. A laugh would never suit her.

Theoretically, Diclonius could laugh. All the right equipment was there. However, as the lab staff had discovered with Mariko, a straightforward sociopath was easier to handle than a maniacal one. It was considered paramount to keep the Diclonius as utterly divorced from reality as possible. Hence the emphasis on objective observation in their upbringing, while emotional education was notable namely by its absence in the minds of Diclonius.

The dog was different. Wanta, like most animals, still trusted that shiver in his spine.

When Lucy's vectors skimmed his fur, the puppy fussed and grumbled, skittering over to Mayu. As Nyu, she'd only ever provoked a mistrustful yapping, but the mutt was sharp enough to detect her shifts before his trusting owner. As Lucy shifted in, his hackles would rise and a low growl seeped through his bared teeth.

Lucy had never learned to laugh, even Nyu had never picked it up. When something was funny, or she believed it to be so, (she was never adept at the distinction) she thought of others. She thought of the way Mayu's cheeks folded into easy creases as her mouth curved, similar to the ghost lines which were becoming more permanent on Kohta's cheeks as the days passed. The young girl's sides would convulse, as if Lucy's vectors pulled her clothes like a marionette. The noise which tumbled from her mouth had startled her at first, no one at the lab had emitted such a sound. She thought of how Wanta relaxed marginally, never completely while the Diclonius were near, as Mayu laughed.

Kohta's eyelids half closed in a slit, and his head would tilt back as he laughed. Yuko wasn't as physically emotive, but her eyes would move to Kohta, and she would smile privately, seeming to value that he was happy without regard for why.

The Diclonius alone were proof that you could spell slaughter without laughter.

Nana didn't laugh either. Her curiosity was tremendous, though somehow more involved and emotive, less clinical than Lucy's assessment. She joined in when the other's laughed, but she used the giggles of Mayu to cover the absence of her own. Each reaction was a half second behind, as she mirrored Kohta's movements. Her observations were poignantly hopeful – anything for the possibility of assimilating into a family. To the contrary, Lucy's interest was evasive, she was more concerned with an analysis than community. In a fundamental sense, there was something infinitely more human about Nana, which was absent in Mariko, Lucy, and the other Diclonius. There was a yearning for family, for community, which the others did not share. Instead, they sought peace, solace and rest, a permanent absence from the trivial cycles of blood and pain which made up the majority of their lives. In the same way Lucy's mind had fashioned Nyu to protect itself, Nana had found an indefatigable faith in humanity and the power of friends and family which shielded her from the psychological shrapnel of their existence.

She closed the water in the shower, shivering reflexively as the cold air touched her skin.

Droplets formed and fell from the showerhead, reminding her of a dear friend's blood dripping off yellow walls. They say you never forget your first time.

Her lips curved – smiling, if nothing else, was something she was able to share with humans.


End file.
